Old Japan's Unbeaten Tracks. E-book. Formato Mobipocket Isabella L. Bird   -  Pubme, 2015  - 

This is not a "Book on Japan," but a narrative of travels in Japan, and an attempt to contribute something to the sum of knowledge of the present condition of the country, and it was not till I had travelled for some months in the interior of the main island and in Yezo that I decided that my materials were novel enough to render the contribution worth making. From Nikko northwards my route was altogether off the beaten track, and had never been traversed in its entirety by any European. I lived among the Japanese, and saw their mode of living, in regions unaffected by European contact. As a lady travelling alone, and the first European lady who had been seen in several districts through which my route lay, my experiences differed more or less widely from those of preceding travellers; and I am able to offer a fuller account of the aborigines of Yezo, obtained by actual acquaintance with them, than has hitherto been given. These are my chief reasons for offering this volume to the public.

Among the tibetans. E-book. Formato Mobipocket Isabella L. Bird   -  Pubme, 2015  - 

At some little distance outside Leh are the cremation grounds—desert places, destitute of any other vegetation than the Caprifolia horrida. Each family has its furnace kept in good repair. The place is doleful, and a funeral scene on the only sunless day I experienced in Ladak was indescribably dismal. After death no one touches the corpse but the lamas, who assemble in numbers in the case of a rich man. The senior lama offers the first prayers, and lifts the lock which all Tibetans wear at the back of the head, in order to liberate the soul if it is still clinging to the body. At the same time he touches the region of the heart with a dagger. The people believe that a drop of blood on the head marks the spot where the soul has made its exit. Any good clothing in which the person has died is then removed. The blacksmith beats a drum, and the corpse, covered with a white sheet next the dress and a coloured one above, is carried out of the house to be worshipped by the relatives, who walk seven times round it. The women then retire to the house, and the chief lama recites liturgical passages from the formularies. Afterwards, the relatives retire, and the corpse is carried to the burning-ground by men who have the same tutelar deity as the deceased. The leading lama walks first, then come men with flags, followed by the blacksmith with the drum, and next the corpse, with another man beating a drum behind it. Meanwhile, the lamas are praying for the repose and quieting of the soul, which is hovering about, desiring to return. The attendant friends, each of whom has carried a piece of wood to the burning-ground, arrange the fuel with butter on the furnace, the corpse wrapped in the white sheet is put in, and fire is applied. The process of destruction in a rich man's case takes about an hour. During the burning the lamas read in high, hoarse monotones, and the blacksmiths beat their drums. The lamas depart first, and the blacksmiths, after worshipping the ashes, shout, 'Have nothing to do with us now,' and run rapidly away. At dawn the following day, a man whose business it is searches among the ashes for the footprints of animals, and according to the footprints found, so it is believed will be the re-birth of the soul.

A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains. E-book. Formato Mobipocket Isabella L. Bird   -  Ionlineshopping.Com, 2019  - 

In 1873 Isabella Bird embarked on a trip through 800 miles of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, on horseback, alone. In a series of letters originally written to her sister back home in England, Bird gives us a detailed account of her travels. It is part Wild West, part nature journal, part historical document, and part character study of the quirky travelers and mountain folk she encounters. Bird starts in San Francisco and goes up into the mountains by train. Her first stop is the lawless outpost Truckee. Here she shares her bed in shifts with saloon patrons, sleeps to the sound of pistol shots, meets with a grizzly while on horseback, and relates a tragic yet somehow comical story of some local cannibals. Fortunately she moves on to more picturesque environs. Bird's goal from the beginning is to reach Estes Park, and this area remains the highlight of her trip. While the scenery never goes without a glorious description--Bird seems particularly taken with mountains, preferably snow-capped and close-up--the curious characters she meets also get their fair share of ink. Notable is "Rocky Mountain Jim" or Mr Nugent as she properly calls him. Mr Nugent is a one-eyed outlaw who reads poetry and serves as her guide through some tricky terrain. They form an obviously close friendship during their time together, some even call it romance. Another memorable character is a young man unnamed by Bird who shows up in the dead of winter, eats all the food, fumbles through any chore he is given, and makes such a nuisance of himself that the repercussions border on dire consequences. Bird tells it all in such excellent detail that we feel we're there--including the part about her eyelids freezing shut and the bullet whizzing past her ear. The reader can take away many things from this multi-faceted work, but the author's point seems to lie in the ephemeral nature of life. She writes of her first visit to Estes Park, "Regarding a place and life ones likes (in spite of all lessons) one is sure to think, 'To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.'" However, she returns to Estes Park to find the place very changed: her friends are gone, the houses are dismantled, and the weather is bleak and icy. She moves on of course, always on the lookout for more adventure, and she apparently found it in Hawaii, Australia, Japan, Malaysia, and Tibet among others.